Kimberly Birrell wins her first-round match against 31st seed Kaia Kanepi, who reached the last eight of last year's Australian Open and is ranked 138 spots higher than Birrell.
Both players held serve to force the tie-break, which Birrell won 7-4, before rattling off the first four games of the deciding set.
Kanepi, whose appearance in the quarterfinals at last year's Australian Open was her seventh trip to the last eight of a major, only won eight of 34 points in the final frame as Birrell rode home on the back of a fired-up home crowd. 2023 marks the German-born world number 167's third time in the main draw of a slam, with the previous two times also coming at the Australian Open, in 2016 and 2019.
She reached the third round in 2019, but fell at the first hurdle in 2016, with repeated injuries setting her back in between.
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